Flash Player and Adobe AIR feature list

Flash Player 11.6 and Adobe AIR 3.6 (February 12, 2013)

SWF version: 19

Feature Documentation
Lossless video export from standalone and authplay.dll No documentation impact
Support for flash.display.graphics.readGraphicsData() that returns a Vector of IGraphicsData API reference
Improve permissions UI related to full screen keyboard access No documentation impact
Prevent ActiveX Abuse in Office Documents Administration Guide
Support file access in cloud on Windows No documentation impact
Enhance multi-SWF support API reference
Migration certification for ANEs Guides:
Signing an updated version of an AIR application
ADT package command
RectangleTexture API reference
File API update so AIR apps conform to Apple data storage guidelines API reference
Separate sampler state for Stage3D API reference
Set device specific Retina Display resolution (iOS) Guides:
Setting desktop application properties
iOS Settings

Flash Player 11.5 and Adobe AIR 3.5 (November 6, 2012)

SWF version: 18

Feature Documentation
Shared ByteArray API references:
flash.concurrent.Condition
flash.concurrent.Mutex
Using worker for concurrency
Invoke Event enhancement (for openurl) API references:
InvokeEvent
InvokeEventReason
Guide
Packaging multiple libraries in an ANE (iOS) Guide
Debug stack trace in release builds of Flash Player API reference
Statically link DRM (Desktop only) API reference
Guide

Flash Player 11.4 and Adobe AIR 3.4 (August 21, 2012)

SWF version: 17

Feature Documentation
Concurrency (ActionScript workers) Guide
API references:
Worker
WorkerDomain
WorkerState
Telemetry API API reference
Flash Player SandboxBridge support API reference
StageVideo.attachCamera() improvements Guide
API references:
attachCamera()
Camera.drawToBitmapData()
VIDEO_FRAME event
List connected devices Command syntax
New location for the iOS Debug Bridge (idb) utility Guide
Compressed texture with alpha support for Stage3D Guide
API references:
Context3D.requestContext3D()Context3DTextureFormat
CubeTexture uploadFromBitmapData() and uploadFromByteArray()
Direct AIR Deployment for iOS Guide
API reference
AudioPlaybackMode.AMBIENT Guide
API reference
Resolve ANE Symbol Conflicts on iOS Guides:
ADT
ANE
iOS Push Notifications Guide
API references:
flash.notifications packageflash.events.RemoteNotificationEvent
LZMA Support for ByteArray Guide
API reference
Increase GPU Reach API reference

Flash Player 11.3 and Adobe AIR 3.3 (June 8, 2012)

SWF version 16

Feature Documentation
Full screen keyboard input Guide
API reference
Texture Streaming Guide
API reference
BitmapData.drawWithQuality Guide
API reference
BitmapData.encode Guide
API reference
HW Failure String in Context3D.driverinfo API reference
Aspect Ratio Enhancements Guide
API reference
USB Debugging for AIR iOS Guide
Enhanced Background Behavior for AIR iOS Guide
Test and Debug Simulator Support Guide
JPEG-XR Support API reference
New location for File.applicationStorageDirectory (Mac OS only) API reference

Flash Player 11.2 and Adobe AIR 3.2 (March 28, 2012)

SWF version 15

Feature Documentation
Stage3D for Adobe AIR Guide
API reference
Silent Auto Update for Windows Guide
Multithread Video Decoding API reference
Mouse Lock Guide
API reference

Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 (October 4, 2011)

SWF version 13

Feature Documentation
Stage 3D Accelerated Graphics Rendering Guide
API reference
Flash Access Content Protection Enhancements Guide
Protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) Guide
NetStream.dispose() API reference
H.264/AVC Software Encoding for Cameras (desktop) API reference
Enhanced High Resolution Bitmap Support API reference
High Efficiency SWF Compression Support Release notes
G.711 Audio Compression for Telephony API reference
Native JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) Support Guide
API reference
Garbage Collection Advice Guide
API reference
Cubic Bezier Curves API reference
Secure Random Number Generator API reference
Socket Progress Events API reference
DisplayObjectContainer.removeChildren and MovieClip.isPlaying Guide
API reference
MovieClip.isPlaying API reference
Sound.loadCompressedDataFromByteArray API reference
Sound.loadPCMFromByteArray API reference
Native 64-bit Support Release notes
Asynchronous Bitmap Decoding Guide
API reference
TLS Secure Sockets Support Guide
API reference
Native Extensions Guide
API reference
Flash Access Content Protection Support for AIR Mobile Guide
Encrypted Local Storage for Mobile Guide
API reference
Captive Runtime Support Guide
Stage Video Hardware Acceleration (AIR Mobile) API reference
H.264/AAC Playback Support (AIR for iOS) Guide
API reference
Front-facing Camera Support (AIR for Android) Guide
API reference
Background Audio Playback Support (AIR for iOS) Guide
Device Speaker Control for Mobile (AIR for iOS & Android) API reference
16 and 32-bit Color Depth Release notes
Game Controller API (AIR TV) Guide
API reference

HOW TO INSTALL APACHE FLEX 4.8.0 SDK IN FLASH BUILDER

step by step tutorial how to install Apache Flex 4.8.0 in Flash Builder, I know that it’s not rocket science but maybe newbie developers could need more information to start play with new SDK.

The new SDK is more or less the same of 4.6 but under Apache flag, like you can read at Spoon website, but we hope people behind the project could give us new opportunities for our RIAs and Mobile projects.

So let’s start!

First of all download Apache Flex 4.8.0 binaries for your operating system (in my case OS X), keep attention, you need the binaries release not the source one.
After unzip the downloaded file create a folder called 4.8.0 in /Applications/Flash Builder 4.5/sdks

Then download playerglobal.swc for Flash Player 11 on Adobe website.

Save it in /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4.5/sdks/4.8.0/frameworks/libs (it could be better create a folder called “player” or as you want, in my case I use “11.1″ and save the swc inside).

Finally, open Terminal navigate trough your folders and position it to this location /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4.5/sdks/4.8.0/frameworks then launch this ANT command:

ant thirdparty-downloads

After 10 minutes you will download everything:
. OMSF dependencies
. TLF framework
. Flex 4.6 SDK and so on

Last but not least, in Flex 4.8 SDK folder you will find a env-template.properties, you have to duplicate the file, call env.properties and set the right path for each folder:

env.AIR_HOME= path to AIR SDK on your filesystem

env.FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER = path to Flash Player Debugger, if you have Flash Pro installed you can find a version in Players/Debug/Flash Player Debugger

env.PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME= path to playerglobal.swc (it’s not an absolute path, it’s relative and starts from frameworks folder in Flex SDK!!!)

env.PIXELBENDER_HOME= path to Pixel Bender Toolkit 2 (it’s not important to set if you don’t use it)

env.ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER= path to Adobe Extension Manager

Remember that in template file you can read an accurate explanation on how to set those environment variables

Then you can start to enjoy the new Flex SDK.

There is another way to install the SDK trough an AIR app that you can download from here: http://people.apache.org/~bigosmallm/installapacheflex/

By Saran Posted in Flex
Aside

The Apache Flex community is pleased to announce the release of Apache Flex 4.8.0-incubating!

Apache Flex is an application framework for easily building Flash Platform-based applications for mobile devices, the browser and desktop.

This is the first release under the Incubator of the Apache Software Foundation and represents the initial donation of Adobe Flex 4.6 by Adobe System Inc. Note that because Apache Flex is under “incubation”, Apache Flex is not an official Apache Project, and this is not an official Apache release. For more information see the DISCLAIMER file in the release.

This release marks the start of a new era for Flex. The future of Flex is now driven by the community instead of a corporation. Users can have important bugs fixed or new features added by contributing the code themselves.

Apache Flex is available in source form from the following download page:

http://incubator.apache.org/flex/download.html

When downloading from a mirror site, please remember to verify the downloads using signatures found on the Apache site:

http://www.apache.org/dist/incubator/flex/KEYS

Apache Flex release packages are different from Adobe release packages. For information on how to use Apache Flex with existing IDEs, see:

http://incubator.apache.org/flex/packager.html

For more information on Apache Flex, visit the project home page:

http://incubator.apache.org/flex/

Apache Flex 4.8.0-incubating Released

By Saran Posted in Flex

DYNAMIC EMBEDDING FONTS WITHOUT USING FLASH OR EMBED METADATA

In the most cases, if you search online, you can find 2 main solutions:
1. first one is embedding fonts in a class with [Embed] metadata
2. second one is create a swf file and instantiate the class of Font embedded inside (this method require Flash Pro)

Searching well you can also find a solution with swfmill but there are some problems to integrate with AS3 projects.
Like you know, in my spare time, I’m playing with Haxe and Corona SDK and in this case Haxe help me to accomplish my task.
I found a great library called hxswfl made with Haxe that allow me to create a swf or swc file directly from an XML, there are many other usage of this library that are described on online repository of this project, but what I need this time is use it to create a library with embedded fonts inside with a class name assigned to each font.

So first of all, following the library XML schema, I create a lib with a list of fonts in this way:

<lib>
 <font file="Palatino-Bold.ttf"/>
 <font file="Palatino-BoldItalic.ttf"/>
 <font file="Palatino-Italic.ttf"/>
 <font file="Palatino-Roman.ttf"/>
 <font file="Verdana-Bold.ttf"/>
 <font file="verdana.ttf"/>
</lib>

Any node has 2 attribute, file attribute where I set the path to find my font on filesystem and the class where I set the class name of my font that I’ll use in my actionscript class later.
After download source of hxswfml library (and obviously before anything I’ve installed Haxe in my computer), I go with Terminal in bin/neko folder and I launched neko file (hxswfml.n) with those parameters:

neko hxswfml.n xml2lib librarySWF.xml lib.swf

I’m telling to my neko program that it has to convert my xml to a swf library, embedding inside all fonts described in the XML file with that class name.

Now we have our SWF file with fonts, we can create our Actionscript project and load with a loader object our swf file.
Then, when SWF file is loaded, we have to register our fonts inside the SWF library, you can accomplish this task like this:

 for(var i:int = 0; i < _fontsArr.length; i++){
 var FontLib:Class = _loader.contentLoaderInfo.applicationDomain.getDefinition(FONT_NAME) as Class;
Font.registerFont(FontLib);
}

Ok, now you can use any fonts that you have in your SWF without install them in your laptop and without create any AS3 class, this is a really easy way to work with external fonts in a dynamic way.

 

 

~http://lucamezzalira.com

By Saran Posted in Flex